From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
1980s Soviet military intelligence program
For other uses, see
Ryan
.
Operation RYAN
(or
RYaN
, and sometimes written as
VRYAN
,
[1]
Russian:
РЯН
,
IPA:
[r?æn]
) was a
Cold War
military intelligence program run by the
Soviet Union
during the early 1980s when they believed the
United States
was planning for an imminent
first strike
attack. The name is an
acronym
for
Raketno-Yadernoe Napadenie
(
Russian
:
Ракетно-ядерное нападение
, "Nuclear Missile Attack"). The purpose of the operation was to collect intelligence on potential contingency plans of the
Reagan
administration to launch a nuclear
first strike
against the Soviet Union.
[2]
[3]
[4]
The program was initiated in May 1981 by
Yuri Andropov
, then chairman of the
KGB
.
Background
[
edit
]
Andropov suffered from a "Hungarian complex" from his personal experience of the
Hungarian Revolution
in 1956 according to the historian Christopher Andrew. Andropov had, as the Soviet
ambassador
to Hungary, "watched in horror from the windows of his embassy as officers of the hated
Hungarian security service
were strung up from lampposts". Andropov remained haunted for the rest of his life by the speed with which an apparently all-powerful Communist one-party state had begun to topple.
Leonid Brezhnev
and Yuri Andropov, then Chairman of the KGB, justified the creation of Operation RYaN because, they claimed, the United States was "actively preparing for nuclear war" against the Soviet Union and its allies. According to a
Stasi
report released in the mid-2010s, the primary "Chekist work" discussed in the May 1981 meeting was the "demand to allow for 'no surprise.
'
"
[5]
Operation
[
edit
]
The Soviet
defector
Oleg Gordievsky
divulged a top-secret KGB telegram sent to the London KGB residency in February 1983. It stated: "The objective of the assignment is to see that the Residency works systematically to uncover any plans in preparation by the main adversary [USA] for RYAN and to organize a continual watch to be kept for indications of a decision being taken to use nuclear weapons against the USSR or immediate preparations being made for a nuclear missile attack." An attachment listed seven "immediate" and thirteen "prospective" tasks for the agents to complete and report. These included: the collection of data on potential places of evacuation and shelter, an appraisal of the level of blood held in blood banks, observation of places where nuclear decisions were made and where nuclear weapons were stored, observation of key nuclear decision makers, observation of lines of communication, reconnaissance of the heads of churches and banks, and surveillance of security services and military installations.
[5]
RYAN took on a new significance after the announcement of plans to deploy
Pershing II
W85-nuclear-armed missiles
to
West Germany
.
[2]
These missiles were designed to be launched from road-mobile vehicles, making the launch sites very hard to find. The flight time from West Germany to
European Russia
was only four to six minutes (approximate flying time from six to eight minutes from West Germany to
Moscow
), giving the Soviets little or no warning.
On 23 March 1983,
Ronald Reagan
publicly announced development of the
Strategic Defense Initiative
. The Soviet government felt that the purpose of SDI technology was to render the US invulnerable to Soviet attack, thereby allowing the US to launch missiles against the USSR without fear of retaliation. This concern about a surprise attack prompted the sudden expansion of the RYAN program. The level of concern reached its peak after the Soviets shot down
KAL 007
near
Moneron Island
on 1 September 1983, and during the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
exercise
Able Archer 83
. The Soviet Union believed that a United States
first strike
on the Soviet Union was imminent.
[2]
Although Andropov died in February 1984, RYAN continued to be maintained and developed under the direction of
Victor Chebrikov.
Consultations held in August 1984 between the Stasi's head of the
Main Directorate of Reconnaissance
,
Markus Wolf
, and
KGB
experts discussed the early detection of potential war preparations in adversaries and indicated that the
First Chief Directorate
of the KGB was proposing to create a new division to deal exclusively with RYAN. 300 positions within the KGB were earmarked for RYAN of which 50 were reserved for the new division.
[6]
Operation RYAN continued to be maintained until at least April 1989.
[7]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Books
- The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983
, Marc Ambinder, Simon & Schuster, 2018.
ISBN
1476760373
- 1983: Reagan, Andropov, and a World on the Brink
, Taylor Downing, Da Capo, 2018.
ISBN
0306921723
- War Scare
, Peter Vincent Pry. Praeger, 1999.
ISBN
0275966437
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